First at Four: Advice to help your New Year's Resolution stick

Karin Kassab, a local psychologist, gives four tips to make your resolution stick in 2016. (Source: WECT)

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) -

We are nearly halfway through January.

How are you doing on your New Year’s resolution?

If you are starting to waiver, here’s some help to keep you on track.

Karin Kassab, a local psychologist and co-owner of Clarity Counseling Center, joined us on WECT News First at Four to talk about how to make your resolution stick in 2016.

Kassab has four tips for you:

Set small, specific goals: Don’t set a resolution to eat healthier. That’s too broad. Instead, be small and specific. A better goal would be to eat a salad once a day or a vegetable at every meal.

Reward yourself: If you’ve done a good job of keeping up with your diet, reward yourself at the end of the week with a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine.

Plan: On Sunday, check in on your progress from the past week. How did you do? What can you do better in the coming week? Kassab recommends planning ahead for the next week. If your goal is to eat healthier, start planning your meals for the week on Sunday night.

Cut yourself some slack: Kassab said aim for “progress not perfection.” Don’t beat yourself up too much if you get off track, just plan to do better tomorrow. If you messed up, don't throw your entire plan out the window.

Kassab has a specialty counseling practice focused on guiding adolescents, adults, and families. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Salvador, Brazil, and Griffith University in Queensland, Australia and received her Masters in Clinical Psychology, with a substance abuse treatment concentration, from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Learn more at http://www.claritywilmington.com.